Shakespeare's Playhouse Reborn on the Thames

Linda Joffee,, The Christian Science Monitor

It has been trumpeted as one of the most exciting events in
recent theatrical history. It is also the realization of a
long-held dream. William Shakespeare's Globe Playhouse, which
burned to the ground in 1613, has for the first time in more than
three centuries reopened for business - a mere stone's throw from
where it stood in Elizabethan times.

The Globe is where the great flowering of English drama
occurred, and the significance of its reopening is hard to
overstate. For Shakespeare devotees from dozens of nations who
contributed to the reconstruction, it marks a return to an era when
a love of language was common. Hopes are high that it will help
revive this passion among contemporary audiences as well as educate
theatergoers about the playwright himself.

The Globe was central to Shakespeare's life and work. Indeed,
after the Bard of Avon became resident playwright, all
of his works were written for and performed at the legendary
"Wooden O." When the theater caught fire during a performance
of "Henry VIII," its demise also brought an abrupt end to the
Bard's incomparable career. With his theater in ashes, the
playwright laid down his quill and retired to his birthplace in
Stratford-upon-Avon. He died soon after.
Despite a number of attempts in years past to reconstruct the
Globe (including by such illustrious folk as Sir Walter Scott and
Lady Randolph Churchill), no one has managed to get the project off
the ground until now. And while the Globe complex - including
another smaller theater plus an exhibition and educational center -
remains unfinished, and the official gala opening has been
postponed (until June 1997) to allow for still more fund-raising,
there is no question that what has been achieved is little short of
amazing.
Ironically, full credit goes to a Yank rather than a Brit.
During a visit to London in 1949, Chicago-born actor Sam Wanamaker
was shocked when, upon searching for the historic theater, he could
find only a small plaque on the side of a brewery wall that stated:
"Here stood the Globe Playhouse of Shakespeare." The area was
derelict and abandoned, yet its former glory resonated through the
old Tudor road names: Clink Street, Bankside, and Skin Market
Place. "They should build a Globe here," he mused.
But only when Mr. Wanamaker moved to Britain a few years later
and finally resolved to take on the project himself did the
American actor realize why it had never before materialized. The
obstacles that he encountered were legion: Byzantine politics;
snail's-pace bureaucracy; vociferous opposition from certain local
factions; protracted court battles; painstaking international
networking, and fund-raising. More than three decades later, he had
little more than an undeveloped plot of land on the banks of
London's River Thames to show for his efforts.
Still, although the actor passed away several years ago, he did
live long enough to witness the initial spadework for what had
become an all-consuming obsession. In an interview shortly before
the much-celebrated groundbreaking, Wanamaker spoke about his
vision for the theater. He emphatically did not want yet another ye
olde England tourist attraction. The key aim, he averred, would be
to promote education and informed appreciation of Shakespeare and
his work.
"There are Elizabethan-style theaters around, but nothing that
even comes close to the structure and conditions of the original
Globe," Wanamaker emphasized with pride, as we gazed at the empty
site that would one day become a reincarnation of the Bard's
playhouse.
To that end, re-creating the Globe in exacting Elizabethan
detail was to be the project's hallmark. While no interior drawings
of the original Globe exist, literally hundreds of scholars from
around the world have helped piece together what the theater and
its environs would have been like.
It is now known, for example, that the polygonal structure was
small by today's standards - probably about 32 feet high and 100
feet in diameter - yet may well have held up to 3,000 people. …

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